


Adam Lambert, Unicorn Activist

by AraSigyrn



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF, Kris Allen (Musician)
Genre: Community: kradamadness, Crack, Gen, unicorn-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-18
Updated: 2011-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Adam has been a unicorn activist for four years and an honest to god recording artist for eight months when he goes to throw his trash in the dumpster one night and finds a baby unicorn hiding behind the recycling bin.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Adam Lambert, Unicorn Activist

**Author's Note:**

> [Original Prompt](http://kradamadness.dreamwidth.org/32603.html?thread=2986331#cmt2986331) by vanya_elda

Adam learns about unicorns from books and biology teachers, the same way everyone else does. There's this whole module on it in high school and they get to go on a four-day field trip to New York and there's a stuffed unicorn in a glass case. The tour guide is droning on about some guy called Ol'Lily, actually Benjamin Lilly who hunted unicorns in the 1890s and is 'credited' with destroying most of the native herds.

"Unicorns were brought back and forth from Europe and Asia during the 1400s, creating the greater unicorn species _ceroequus nobilis_ through inter-breeding. There are believed to less than eight thousand true unicorns in the world today." The guide sounds like she's reading the back of a cereal packet. "The unicorn population in the US has been hunted to the brink of extinction since 1940 and experts believe there are less than two hundred unicorns in the United States today. Benjamin Lily died in 1936 with a life-time game-bag of two thousand four hundred unicorns."

Adam looks at the dead unicorn; it looks fake, with false eyes like black marbles and a dusty silver coat that's going thin and thread-bare across the points of the hips and shoulders. One of the hooves hasn't been put on properly and the mane is coarse and messy. Even the horn is cracked and dull and looks like a badly painted fake but there's something tragic about it.

Someone obviously tried to make it look grand and threatening but even in the stiff, fake pose, the unicorn looks gentle. Adam looks at Ol'Lily with his big bushy beard and big slobbering dogs and thinks _asshole_.

Adam makes it out of high school and moves to LA the year after and loses all his puppy fat. LA turns out to be full of pretty boys and music. In other words, it's paradise and Adam dives in with both feet. His life fills up with glitter and light and pretty boys and people who think he's incredible. It's awesome.

He dates Brad who is fantastic but they're ...volatile and most of their friends are happy when they decide to call the romantic side of their relationship off. Brad is still Adam's go-to friend when he needs to unwind or just get out of his head. He's also Adam's biggest fan and blackmails Adam into sending in his demo tapes to every label and agent that he can find by holding Adam's favorite boots hostage until he does.

A couple of months later, just as Adam gets his first chance at a recording contract, he meets Drake. Adam finds out a lot more about unicorns because Drake turns out to be a _hardcore_ activist and handing out leaflets and emailing fund raising requests is not even in the top hundred shadiest things Adam has done to score a hot boy. Drake can recite facts and figures mid-fuck even, which Adam finds a little insulting.

Adam's casual interest in unicorns outlasts his interest in Drake.

Adam doesn't really plan it but Drake left a lot of literature and pamphlets in Adam's flat when he moved out and Adam is kinda lazy so he starts reading a few of them as he fills a trash bag. There's a lot of different leaflets and Adam feels a little sick when he actually reads the information.

Globally, unicorns are in big trouble. China might have a couple of thousand but they won't admit it and Utah and Arizona start having droughts and poor crop returns after the last small herd of unicorns are killed by a loony hunting group. Fires in California mean the West Coast unicorns are being declared extinct. There's still some unicorns in Europe but the State Department gets a wonderfully polite 'fuck you' when they try to buy a couple of breeding pairs.

As Adam explains drunkenly to Brad after the obligatory post-breakup cocktails that night, unicorns are the perfect cause for a rockstar who's out of the closet. They're sparkly, they're good for the environment and they're made for photo ops. Brad drags him out to the taxi and tells him to lay off the margaritas.

Adam still thinks this is something he needs to do when he wakes up with a killer hangover the next morning. It just doesn't seem fair to Adam. Unicorns are cool and how fucked is it to be born in the generation that gets to watch them die out? He spends most of his free time after he signs his contract doing research and really getting into the activist thing. His management love the whole thing and the concept work for Adam's first album has a stylized unicorn on the back.

Adam has been a unicorn activist for four years and an honest to god recording artist for eight months when he goes to throw his trash in the dumpster one night and finds a baby unicorn hiding behind the recycling bin.

Adam's still living in his old apartment which isn't exactly upscale and there's a deserted park not too far away. There's a couple of miles of housing estates and roads between the park and the non-city parts of the state but it's the closest thing to wilderness for at least twenty miles. There is no way that this qualifies as a unicorn habitat.

Adam looks around the alley as quickly as he can but there aren't any other unicorns hiding behind the dumpster or anything. It's not a bad neighborhood but Adam worries all the same. Something soft brushes the tips of his fingers and he looks down when the unicorn nuzzles shyly at his fingers. It has to reach up just to do that, neck stretched out and Adam's a goner.

"Hey, baby," he croons, sinking down slowly to sit on his heels and the unicorn sniffs at the curve of his neck, whiskers tickling across Adam's skin and Adam squirms and wiggles a little and the unicorn whuffs and crowds in a little closer.

The unicorn is tiny and golden with big, liquid brown eyes and weights next to nothing. Adam thinks, is nearly certain - that it's a boy unicorn. Adam can pick him up and he's fluffy and okay, the horn is really sharp but he looks totally apologetic and Adam never liked that shirt anyway. He has a unicorn to cuddle and seriously, who needs a (bespoke tailored) shirt?

The unicorn winds up bundled in a big plaid blanket that Neil brought him back from Phoenix last year and Adam frantically ransacks his apartment for something that a unicorn can eat. He's not really a cook (at all); his fridge is 80% booze and 10% old Chinese takeout. After five minutes of desperate running around, Adam remembers gorgeous red-berry tarts with a honey glaze that he picked up from the bakery across the street from the studio yesterday.

The rustle of the paper bag brings the unicorn shuffling in from the living room with the blanket tangled up around him. He gets up on his hind legs to sniff at the bag, tiny fore hooves pressing two neat little prints into Adam's sweatpants. His tail flicks back and forth and he bumps at Adam's elbow with his nose.

"You like the smell of that?" Adam asks with a smile and the unicorn chirrups and nudges his elbow harder. "Okay, okay."

Adam's actually a little afraid that the unicorn will choke given that the tarts are bigger than his mouth. He winds up sitting cross legged on the kitchen floor, feeding his unicorn the tarts piece-by-piece. The unicorn eats six tarts altogether and Adam eats the two that are left.

"You could be the most awesome diet aid ever invented," Adam tells the unicorn seriously. The unicorn yawns at him and licks its fur clean with an adorable pink tongue.

"You need a name," Adam says as the unicorn snuggles back into his blanket. "I don't even know if you can understand me."

The unicorn chirrups and nods his head vigorously.

"You can understand me? Awesome!" Adam looks at him. "...uh, I should totally be Googling names right now. Let me think about this...how do you feel about 'Sparkles'? 'Twinkle'?

The unicorn snorts and pokes Adam's knee reprovingly. Adam yelps a little because for such a small thing, the horn is _sharp_. Then the unicorn writes "My name is Kris" in lopsided golden letters with his horn and Adam is in love.

"Okay, then Kris," he says as the unicorn cuddles up under his arm. "My name is Adam."

Kris chirrups and wriggles so he's curled up on Adam's lap and closes his eyes. Adam combs his fingers through Kris' mane; it's short and stands up in this kick-ass mohawk almost but it's soft and Adam's hand glitters when he runs his fingers through the golden strands.

Adam stays on the kitchen floor, stroking Kris' soft fur until his legs start to go to sleep. Kris is reluctant to move but he weighs less than his blanket so Adam can just scoop him up in his blanket. He settles Kris in the beanbag in the corner of his room and goes to brush his teeth before crawling into bed.

Kris starts chirruping pitifully within a minute of Adam switching off the lights and the most pathetic sound in the world is apparently a baby unicorn trying to crawl out of a beanbag. Kris starts sounding more desperate and the scrabbling increases until Adam sighs and rolls out of bed.

He scoops Kris up and trips over the fucking blanket three times because Kris insists on dragging it over with them. Adam finally gets them both settled on the bed and pulls the covers up, rolling so Kris can tuck in against his back.

"Just this once," Adam says and Kris sighs contentedly. Adam doesn't think Kris believed him either.

Adam wakes up the next morning, highly tuned make-up senses alerting him to someone poking around his stuff. Kris is wearing some of Adam's royal blue eyeshadow on the end of his nose and sneezes all over Adam's eyeliners. Adam squawks indignantly but Kris is busily investigating Adam's hair products and Adam lunges to catch him before he starts on the toy box underneath the hairdryer.

Kris, of course, thinks this is a game and he goes prancing off with Adam's flat iron and makes Adam chase him around the apartment for twenty minutes before he gives it back. Adam is panting and sweaty and wondering if his landlord will notice the hoofprints on the ceiling and if it's coming out of Adam's security deposit if he does.

Adam has the day off, it's a long weekend this week, thank God and producers so he phones in an order to the local supermarket, heavy on the fruit and vegetables and with three different types of honey and settles in to play with his unicorn.

Kris is actually really sweet when he's not bored and hyper and totally willing to let Adam tie big bright scarves around his neck and brush his mane and the little poof of hair of hair at the end of his tail. Kris also likes having his belly rubbed which is stupidly adorable. Adam plays music and Kris does this dorky little dance when he likes a song and he's actually got a good sense of rhythm. He hides in Adam's bedroom when the delivery comes and Adam has to coax him back out with a fresh shiny red apple.

He's learning that Kris is susceptible to bribery with food and they work their way through the almost the whole three bags of groceries to see what Kris likes, Adam preemptively putting the chicken breasts in the fridge. Adam checks off food Kris likes on the receipt so he'll know what to order in future.

Three hours later, Adam's list looks something like this:

" _Arame ————————————— no, (gets caught in his teeth)  
Sea Palm —————————- yes (but only one at a time)  
Olives ———————————- ? (only black olives, preferably French)  
Almonds ——————————- yes (watch fingers Kris may mistake for more almonds)  
Hazelnuts ————————- yes (pref. still in shells)  
Pecan nuts ———————- yes (chocolate dipped = sleepy)  
Chestnuts ————————- yes (toasted)  
Brazil nuts ——————- yes (Not in shells, beware of static effect if Kris' coat has just been brushed (don't feed when Kris is within ten feet of iPod/phone/tv)  
Flax seeds ———————- no (gives him gas and/or tummy ache.)  
Mint leaves ——————- yes (makes tummy better)  
Honey ————————————- YES (lots of this.)_"

He adds the finishing touches to the list while he sits out on the fire escape and Kris looks guilty. Adam guesses it will take about another hour for the apartment to air out but it's not raining and it's going to be a nice evening so Adam is feeling fairly philosophical about the whole thing.

"So, no flax seeds then," Adam says and Kris paws a little at the fire-escape, looking embarrassed. Adam dips an apple slice in the honey pot and feeds it to Kris. Kris likes the ridiculously expensive organic honey over the generic own brand. Adam can't really begrudge it though; the organic honey makes Kris honest-to-god _glow_ like an overgrown firefly.

When Kris is too full to eat anything else, Adam puts the list into his pocket and combs his fingers through Kris' mane and talks hair-dye and nail polish colors

"I'm thinking royal blue is totally your color, baby," Adam says and Kris rolls his head to look skeptically at him. "I'm serious! I mean, you wouldn't dye all your mane but a couple of streaks would look _fierce_."

They go back inside and Kris gets glitter all over the couch while Adam makes some hot chocolate. He heats the milk in a pan rather than the microwave and pours Kris' hot chocolate into a soup bowl and he brings extra marshmallows. Kris gets a chocolate mustache which Adam totally has to take a picture of and he sets it as the wallpaper on his phone. Kris doesn't seem to understand but he whuffles at the phone when Adam plays some samples of his new album and flicks his tail in what Adam is choosing to take as Kris' way of saying 'totally awesome'.

Adam waits until one am when he's sure that everyone in the building is asleep and Kris is hopping around with his hind legs crossed before he takes Kris out to the park. Kris runs straight across the road without looking and gives Adam a heart-attack. He's starting to wonder how Kris managed without him. Alright, so there's no traffic right now, but this is LA, land of the gridlock and boy racers, and how is Kris not already a road pizza?

Adam jogs across the road _after_ he looks both ways, muttering darkly about leashes and litter trays. There's a cab drifting through the junction down at the end of the road and there's someone playing music obnoxiously loud two blocks down.

The park is dark and Adam wishes he'd brought his can of Mace even if crack heads would turn their noses up at crashing in this park. He can see Kris, a golden glowing shape just ahead of him. Kris disappears behind some straggling rose bushes and Adam looks around and taps his fingers and hums a little, trying to pretend he's not watching for his pet unicorn to finish taking a leak.

It seems to take forever and Adam is having visions of his mutilated corpse being found when he hears a rustle starting in the bushes. Visions of feral dogs or alligators flash through his head as he looks around. The bushes are growing, the roses are starting to open. Tiny little lines of light trace up through the petals and the last time Adam saw something this surreal was Burning Man. Sparkling, glowing roses open and there's got to be like a hundred feet of rose bushes coming into bloom and nothing Adam's ever read about unicorns mentioned trippy neon flowers. Adam looks down, exasperated when Kris pushes his head up under Adam's hand.

"You are like the opposite of subtle, you know that?"

Kris blinks up at him with wide innocent eyes and eats one of the roses. Adam laughs and scruffles his mane and Kris rubs up against his leg and trots happily alongside Adam back to the apartment, chewing on another rose.

"How do you not cut your mouth open on that?" Adam wonders as he fumbles for his key. "Roses have thorns, don't they?"

Kris chews meditatively for a minute, then spits out a long wicked black thorn onto the welcome mat. Adam's eyes bug out a little at the size of it. Kris' tail flicks mischievously and Adam shakes his head.

"Okay, you can't go spitting this kinda thing up on the mat. Mrs Langdon will have a fit," he bends down to pick it up and Kris sniffs at his ear, making Adam giggle and shiver away.

Kris clatters into the apartment and inspects the living room and the kitchen like they've been gone for days instead of ten minutes while Adam throws the thorn into the garbage disposal and gets two glasses of water. Kris brushes past him as Adam opens the bedroom door and jumps back up unto his side of the bed. He tramples a very careful circle and settles down in a tangle of his blanket and Adam's covers. Adam puts both glasses on the bedside locker and pets him. Kris chirrups sleepily.

"So," Adam says casually as he starts to undress. "This mean you're planning to stay?"

Kris opens one eye, looks up and down and nods vigorously and Adam smiles. He gets ready for bed and slides into the third of a bed that Kris isn't sprawled over. Kris immediately snuggles shamelessly and Adam laughs as he combs his fingers through Kris' mane.

"I think this is the start of an awesome friendship," he says sleepily and the last thing he hears is Kris' chirrup of agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: There is a longer version of this with something approaching actual plot but it's not finished and I need to get it out of my brain.


End file.
